Sweden wins Eurovision

So, just three years after its last win, Sweden took home the glory (there is glory, right?) and the trophy (there is a trophy, right?) from this year’s Eurovision bash, with Swedish pop singer (and one time ‘Idol’ loser) Måns Zelmerlöw scoring 365 points for his performance of ‘Heroes’ by Anton Malmberg Hård af Segerstad, Joy Deb and Linnea Deb. Sweden came in 62 points ahead of second-placed Russia.

Commenting after this weekend’s Contest, Zelmerlöw told reporters: “I am thrilled to have won for Sweden. It’s been a lifelong dream of mine to sing at Eurovision and winning has surpassed my wildest expectations. I’ve had an amazing experience in Vienna and I am very thankful to everyone who believed in the song and voted for my performance. I would also like to thank Jonas and the team at Warner Music Sweden who have supported my journey and I’m very excited about us working together in the future on my new music”.

The Jonas of which he speaks, in case you were wondering, is Jonas Siljemark, President of Warner Music Nordics, to which Zelmerlöw is signed. He also had something to say about the Eurovision win, which conveniently comes just two weeks ahead of the release of Zelmerlöw’s new album. The Warner exec added: “Måns is a truly exceptional talent and his performance was undoubtedly the highlight of the evening. We are very pleased to congratulate him on another impressive win for Sweden”.

The UK scored an equally impressive five points at the contest, which might have put us 24th out of the 27 countries competing in the Eurovision final, but it was still pretty impressive; given just how shit a song we put forward this year. And indeed every year.

Perhaps in 2016 we could just enter a song made up of all the customary “why do we never put a decent song up for Eurovision given we’re actually quite good at pop songwriting?” chatter that follows the big Song Contest every May. Either that, or just send that Mike Read over and have him sing in one of his hilarious foreign accents. If we’re never going to win, let’s at least cause a scandal.